As I was
driving back home from the venue today, I kept thinking of an appropriate adjective
to qualify what actually took place there. So many curse words came to my mind.
Everything that transpired there today points to the very reason why a great potential
like Nigeria has gradually retrogressed into becoming a failed state.
It
started initially well, at least I saw that two of the suggestions I made
yesterday to one of the organizers were put in place today and it enhanced the
smooth commencement of the exercise until
the very organizers themselves began to destroy the peace and orderliness with
which the activity started; I had told one of the organizers yesterday that
the first thing they should have done was use a rope to cordon the area from
where they would be operating to make people not intrude into their work space,
I told him too that to correct and excise people from thronging towards them
rather than be seated, they should make use of the available microphones
because I discovered that some of the persons who kept pushing forward and
constituting a disorderliness were people who were not hearing the organizers
each time they made their several announcements.
Today,
these two common but handy ideas were put in place and they made a tremendous difference
compared to yesterday. It would be
recalled that yesterday when I left after being informed that the officers were
only going to attend to a 100 persons; I had number 185 with me, hoping today that
if they came early they would be able to attend to at least a 100 persons or
more.
Surprisingly
at my arrival this morning, I learnt that the officers worked until around
22:30 yesterday, so when I came this morning I was given another number as a
continuation from where they stopped yesterday on the list. The new number was
number 30 although I was also made to know that there were about 25 persons
carried over from yesterday´s exercise that logically would be attended to before
me, so roughly I imagined that I would be within the first 60 persons that
would be attended to.
All
through, I sat patiently as names and more names were announced to take their
turns, until the names became endless and still it had not reached my turn. I
stood up to go to the table to demand from the host organizers the point they
were on the list, it was then that I saw that some of the organizers were
smuggling in the forms of people whose turns it had not reached after possibly receiving
bribes from them, at that point I lost it completely, I realized that only
illegal persons are respected by Nigerians, those of us who had tried to act
civilized and stick to the rules were treated as fools, I threatened to
overturn their table and some people intervened before the matter got out of
hand. The host organizers denied the accusation and even made me look a liar
and a fool.
But as
time went by, they continued in their corrupt activity, smuggling in people
from the back door and so on, until the whole of us gathered, caught them red
handed. They had called on a girl who some people had seen arrive today not
more than two hours before then and were about smuggling her in when someone
raised the alarm that she had just arrived, so caught in their own net they had
no option than to quash their decision. But as the girl returned to her seat she
turned around to all of us, particularly to a lady who was the one who had
complained bitterly and asked her to shut up! And before I knew it, chairs were
flying and the two ladies and some of their friends were already engaged in a serious uproar.
At
17:30, we learnt that the process would be terminated for the day because the church
which is serving as the venue would be having a Church service. So, after over
8 hours, I had still not been attended to, I asked the officers how many forms
they had treated already and they said they had done a little over 200, yet on
the official list we were still around 147 persons which means that over 60 persons
have been smuggled in by this corrupt Nigerians, who were supposed to be defending
the good name of Nigeria and upholding her integrity.
My heart bleeds seriously
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